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Technically, I probably should have started with this book first, since Red Quill Books actually released its one & only Manga de Dokuha physical book before One Peace Books released its four, as this came out on June 9, 2012. However, let’s face facts here… I think it’s way more interesting to end things off with a manga adaptation of Das Kapital by Karl Marx, the literal foundation of Marxism that initially came out across three volumes in 1867, 1885, & 1894, the latter two coming out after Marx’s death in 1883. For whatever reason Red Quill Books decided to rename it Capital - In Manga!, while also flipping the book to read left to right, which in 2012 was an immensely bizarre choice to make. In all honesty, the very idea of adapting Das Kapital into manga form is pretty damn absurd for a single reason: Das Kapital isn’t a story. It’s a literal text, a critique of capitalism done by analyzing political economy & showing the economic patterns that define what Marx deemed the capitalist mode of production. To be fair, though, the Manga de Dokuha line also did manga adaptations of other more didactic works of non-fiction, like The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by John Maynard Keynes, the theory of relativity by Albert Einsten, the literal Constitution of Japan, the Kama Sutra… and the literal Communist Manifesto. Yeah, apparently the Manga de Dokuha version of The Crab Cannery Ship being such a big seller is why a manga adaptation of Das Kapital was even made in the first place, and those two manga adaptations supposedly played some role in the rise of more left-wing literature in Japan during the late 00s. Das Kapital’s manga version sold so well, in fact, that an adaptation of Das Kapital, Volume II came out only half a year later in May 2009… but all Red Quill Books released in English was the first volume. Red Quill Books even later released an illustrated version of The Communist Manifesto, but instead of simply translating the Manga de Dokuha adaptation they instead just made their own four-part version. Anyway, let’s see how exactly Variety Art Works/Team Banmikas managed to turn Das Kapital into an actual story.

Robin works with his father Heinrich to sell cheese at the local city, and the quality of their cheese is in high regard. One day Enny, a young woman Robin’s infatuated with, introduces Robin to Daniel, an investor who finds that Robin’s offerings are so popular very intriguing, as there are other vendors in the city & Robin only comes by once a week to sell. Meanwhile, Robin is slowly wanting to get more actual money for what he & his father offer, which goes against how Henrich prefers to run their business, as Heinrich is fine trading things like tomatoes for their cheese; like Henrich’s deceased wife (& Robin’s mother) said before she died: Moderation is Best. However, Robin feels that if he & his father had more money then they could have saved his mother from dying, so Robin decides to enter into a business agreement with Daniel, one where Daniel will provide Robin with a small space for a factory, along with workers & equipment, and in return Robin will simply have to make sure that he’ll pay back what Daniel lent him… even if everything fails, as insurance. Over time, though, Robin starts to realize that if he has any hope of making a profit then he’ll have to start cutting corners & exploit his employees in order to save on costs, even if only a little at a time. However, in doing so Robin starts to treat his workers as slaves… and, when he starts to think about it, isn’t he just a slave to Daniel, just as capitalism intends?
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As mentioned, Capital - In Manga! is an original story that simply uses Marx’s text as the thematic focus of its story. In that case it’s easy to see that this is a story that shows the darker side of how capitalism works, a mode of production that emphasizes the accumulation of money, which Marx defined as a commodity, no different from the product being sold or even the labor being put into the production of said commodity. However, in capitalism the money is the end goal, rather than the production of the commodity itself, so in the end it creates an automatic tier system based solely on how much money certain people have. The workers are at the very bottom, who are exploited (mentally, physically, & even violently) in ways so that their bosses can profit off of their hard work, but even their bosses may not necessarily be at the top, as they themselves can wind up being exploited by the investors who provided them with cash to get things started. In the end it creates a vicious cycle, and a single mantra becomes seen commonly by the end of the book: “We Are Not Slaves!”.

Unfortunately, though, while this “adaptation” of Das Kapital does convey Marx’s message the actual story itself that’s told is honestly pretty lackluster. Robin’s story makes sense for the general themes & ideas that the story aims to tell, based on Marx’s book, but it results in a pretty bland story, when taken as its own tale. Robin wants to get rich, thinking that it’ll prevent tragedy from happening to him like his family’s lack of money led to in the past, only for him to get caught up in the perils of capitalism, where he has to take advantage of his workers (or else they’ll take advantage of his kind heart), but in doing so he loses track of more important things, like his relationship with his father or the promise he made to a childhood friend to marry her if he ever became rich (during which she becomes a prostitute to help provide for her family). Over time Robin comes to realize that he’s been exploited by Daniel (& Enny) in a way not too dissimilar from how he exploits his workers, one of which gets fired for speaking out about how they aren’t slaves, etc., etc. It’s not a poorly told story, by any means, but at the same time there really isn’t much of a creative spark to be found within it; it truly is just a means to explain the concepts in Marx’s book. Not just that, but it’s all done with the subtlety of a rock, like having literal children working jobs that they don’t even know how it relates to the overall commodity that they’re helping produce. While the idea is to showcase the flaws in capitalism I have to imagine even Karl Marx explained his concepts in Das Kapital with something resembling an ever-so-subtle touch. Also, while one could say that the story likely takes place in the time when Marx wrote Das Kapital, i.e. a time when child labor was more common, this manga story actually does a terrible job at giving a good point in time it takes place in, as a variety of technological advances that didn’t exist in Marx’s time (like a bank vault with a modern-style electronic lock) are easily seen at points.

All of this isn’t helped by Red Quill Books’ production, in general, as while the translation itself is fine enough there is the occasional odd word choice (“had had”, while grammatically correct, appears more often than you’d expect to see here), & most bizarrely was the decision to flip the artwork. By 2012 this was almost no longer done for manga, and Red Quill took the laziest way possible by simply flipping everything & calling it a day, which results in even the katakana sound effects (which were, unsurprisingly, left untranslated) being printed as mirror images of what they were meant to be. It’s just an immensely shoddy production choice to make, and Red Quill seriously feels that this release is still worth $27.50 MSRP! Without a doubt, the Manga de Dokuha “adaptation” of Das Kapital Volume I is, I feel, the weakest of the lot that saw physical release in English, and Red Quill Books’ Capital - In Manga! release does it no favors. The simple fact that the story doesn’t even feel finished also doesn’t help at all, as while there was later an “adaptation” of Volume II made (which I can only imagine continues the story?) that was only made because the first book sold well; Variety Art Works/Team Banmikas wrote the first book to not have a “proper” ending.